Bernard O. Holocaust testimony

Videotape testimony of Bernard O., who was born in Łódź, Poland in 1937, an only child. He recalls his familys' affluence; their insistence he speak only Polish; German invasion; his father's mother giving them gold coins; joining relatives in Warsaw; moving to the Piotrków ghetto; his mother obtaining false papers for herself and him; taking a train with her (his father was hidden with non-Jews); observing Gestapo inspecting papers; jumping off the train without their documents; entering the nearby Radom ghetto; his mother contacting his father; his father joining them; hiding during deportations; his parents volunteering for the local forced labor camp; his mother bribing a guard for him to enter (they did not want children); hiding in the barrack until his mother bribed an official to obtain a number for him; slave labor in a poultry processing plant; evacuation with his mother; their escape from a death march; wandering from farm to farm, working for the farmers, then keeping house for a paralyzed woman and her family; liberation by Soviet troops; returning to Łódź; his father joining them; living in the Landsberg displaced persons camp; attending school for the first time; living in Buchloe, then Munich; and emigration to the United States in 1951, with assistance from the Joint. Mr. O. attributes his survival to speaking perfect Polish, not "looking Jewish"; the gold coins; and his mother's resourcefulness. He shows photographs.

2 videocassettes